Page:Twelve men of Bengal in the nineteenth century (1910).djvu/136

114 being divided and subdivided among his descendants until the share of each became insufficient for his maintenance. This occurring among the descendants of Abdur Rasul at Rajapur, various cadets of the family were forced to look beyond the local limits of their own home for the means of livelihood. Among them Kaji Fakir Muhamed, sixth in descent from Shah Azimuddin, set out from his old home to seek his fortune in Calcutta. There he joined the bar of the old Suddar Dewani Adaulut, in those days almost the only career open to a man of ambition outside the service of the Company. The freedom and independence enjoyed by a Pleader at the Sudder Court appealed to Fakir Muhamed and his own personal interests travelled far beyond the limits of the legal profession. The study of history exercised for him an absorbing fascination and the result of his researches was a Universal History written by him in Persian and entitled Jami-ul-Tawarik. It was published in 1836 and met with considerable success. Eight years later Kaji Fakir Muhamed died at his old home at Rajapur, from which success in another and wider sphere of life had never weaned his affections.

His second son was the future Nawab, the subject of this memoir. With his two brothers he was educated at the Calcutta Madrassa and early showed signs of the distinction he was destined to gain in later years. The Madrassa owed its origin to that wisest of